Priority threats : Keep the focus on Afghanistan not Iraq
" Last autumn's US-led military action
dispersed al-Qaida but sadly failed to destroy it. For whatever
reason, Osama bin Laden has disappeared and al-Qaida has
signally failed so far to mount the feared follow-up to September
11 But it has not been defanged, as shown by the actual or
thwarted attacks in North Africa and Italy this year. Its support
base in the Muslim world may actually have expanded as
anti-American sentiment, particularly over Palestine, has grown.
And its finances remain considerable."
Leader
Saturday September 7, 2002
The Guardian
Hamid Karzai is a man with a lot of enemies. They include
adherents of the Taliban regime he helped depose last year,
fellow Pashtuns who oppose his Tajik-dominated transitional
government, anti-American renegades such as former prime
minister and mojahedin leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and a host
of other malcontents. Any one of them may have been behind
the latest attempt to assassinate Mr Karzai in Kandahar and an
almost simultaneous car bombing in Kabul. But most likely, as
suggested by the Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, the
culprits were members of al-Qaida or its local offshoots.
This is no great surprise. Last autumn's US-led military action
dispersed al-Qaida but sadly failed to destroy it. For whatever
reason, Osama bin Laden has disappeared and al-Qaida has
signally failed so far to mount the feared follow-up to September
11. But it has not been defanged, as shown by the actual or
thwarted attacks in North Africa and Italy this year. Its support
base in the Muslim world may actually have expanded as
anti-American sentiment, particularly over Palestine, has grown.
And its finances remain considerable.
According to a UN report,
"al-Qaida is by all accounts 'fit and well' and poised to strike
again at its leisure". From Europe too comes evidence that
al-Qaida's comeback has commenced. In Britain, MI5 keeps
silent watch over sleepers. In Germany, anti-terror chief Manfred
Klink warns that "the network is fundamentally ready for action".
But the focal point of this reviving activity is to be found, as prior
to September 11, along the Kabul-Karachi axis. Here in recent
months al-Qaida's hand has been detected in a gradually
accelerating series of direct or proxy attacks inside both
Afghanistan and Pakistan. An attempt to assassinate
Pakistan's leader, Pervez Musharraf, was foiled but western
civilians and Christian churchgoers have not been as lucky as
he and Mr Karzai.
Clearly, lest the same mistake be repeated, these stirrings
along the faultlines of al-Qaida terror must be stifled before they
again reach out to strike across the world. To this end, the US
should spend less time abusing Iraq and far more underwriting
long-term Afghan and Pakistani security and democracy. That in
part means expanded multinational peacekeeping, much more
aid, and an all-out attempt at nation-building in both these most
unstable of states.
guardian.co.uk |
